Chemical Engineering Matters

IChemE's goal is to advance chemical engineering worldwide. We are doing this because chemical engineering matters – and it matters in many different ways, with a big impact on quality of life for everyone.

Demand on finite resources is increasing, and the global population is expected to exceed nine billion by 2050. Chemical engineering is at the forefront of meeting these demands, not least in four key challenge areas confronting society:

Water

Energy

Food and nutrition

Health and wellbeing

The impact of the discipline in the 21st century is set out in the Chemical Engineering Matters report. The report describes the thinking behind everything that IChemE is doing to support its members and promote the profession internationally. It forms the basis of the institution's technical strategy.

Chemical Engineering Matters is intended to provoke debate and stimulate activity and engagement both within the profession and beyond it.

The report outlines the scope, application and implications for chemical engineering in a series of 'vistas' examining activity across the four challenge areas where chemical engineers create, maintain and improve quality of life, now and in the future.

Updated in 2016 and now in its third edition, Chemical Engineering Matters reflects member feedback and reports on progress made since it was first published in 2013.

Significantly, it identifies eight priority action areas for IChemE. These actions will underpin the institution's work programmes in the years ahead.

If you have any comments, questions, or wish to discuss any aspect of Chemical Engineering Matters in further detail, please contact us.

During his presidential year, 2014-2015, Professor Geoff Maitland launched a campaign called ChemEng365.

The ChemEng365 blog featured chemical engineering good news stories that promoted the importance and contribution of chemical engineering to society in improving quality of life for all.

Following the successful ChemEng365 campaign, IChemE will continue to blog under a new name – ChemEng blog. The blog’s mission carries on from Geoff Maitland’s presidential year: to shine a light on chemical engineering by sharing chemical engineering successes, achievements and initiatives.

If you are a chemical engineer, or are involved with chemical engineering in some way, we're pretty sure that you'll have some great stories to tell. IChemE’s communications team would certainly like to hear from you, so why not get in touch via the ChemEng blog and do your bit to show that chemical engineering really does matter.

IChemE is a registered charity in England & Wales (214379), and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 039661)